Thursday, January 29, 2009

One For The Road

A late game in St. Louis doesn't leave us much time to go through it all but a few players really stood out in what was a morale boosting road win against the tenacious Blues.

The obvious two are Brian Elliott and Mike Fisher, both of whom were the best players on the ice for either team. Fisher played over 20 minutes and had 7 shots on goal to go along with his +2 rating and 2 goals.

Elliott was near perfect and was making huge stops late in the 2nd and 3rd periods and seems to have gotten over his earlier jitters which were causing him to give out some ugly rebounds. The puck was hitting him in the chest all night and you just got the feeling watching him that there weren't going to be any soft goals. It's hard to describe a goalie as "intense" because they stand around in one area all night with a mask covering their faces but Elliott just seemed so much more focused and aggressive tonight than he was against the Devils earlier in the week.

Other standouts were Dany Heatley who had 5 shots and Jason Smith, who drew back into the lineup in place of Alex Picard.

As I said in an earlier post, I've been disappointed in Picard all year and was wondering when he was going to be pulled out of the lineup. Then I seemed to be the only one who thought he had a pretty good game against the Devils while most columnists were pointing him out specifically for his soft play that night. So he finally gets yanked and the Senators didn't seem to miss him all that much.

Smith just played his usual gritty but understated game and Hartsburg would be foolish to take him out of the lineup going forward here. This is a guy you need on the ice every night.

And of course, rookie Peter Regin scored the game winner in stunning fashion late in the 3rd period and he keeps getting more interesting to watch every game. When Shean Donovan comes back from his injury, Jesse Winchester could be the next guy to sit if the Senators decide they want to keep Regin around for the foreseeable future. I think he merits at least another week or two to see what else he can do.

Tomorrow night will be a tough one in Columbus but there is some hope for Ottawa because the Jackets are plagued with injuries right now. Alex Auld is scheduled to start and it would be a perfect time for him to step up with a big game and take some pressure off the rookie Elliott.

First off, if you are offended by Melnyk’s “bomb” remarks, then you are way too sensitive and politically correct by a mile. How do you function day to day when such a tepid, everyday common remark offends your sense of moral conduct?

Everyone knows that Melnyk didn’t literally mean for fans to “blow themselves up”. If you do think that, then you are a cretin.

And if that phrase is so toxic, then why don’t we start getting up in arms when broadcasters use the exact same term (which they do almost nightly)?

You hear all the time about bad teams having to “blow themselves up” in order to rebuild. Where’s the sense of outrage when journalists say that?

The reason no one gets angry about it is because the majority of us have functioning brains and can tell that it is just a harmless turn of phrase.

Yet, there was Glenn Kulka going off the rails with feigned disgust at Melnyk’s words.

But what’s the real story here?

Could it be that Kulka, perhaps the most vocal member of the local media in support of Jeff Hunt’s bid to bring back a CFL franchise, is just expressing sour grapes towards Melnyk who is trying to bring in a soccer franchise, widely seen as being the biggest obstacle to Hunt’s CFL bid?

I do not pretend to have insight into Kulka’s thought processes but this is Psychology 101 stuff. His invective was so sharp against Melnyk that if you just arrived on earth and listened to him tear apart the Senators owner, you’d be ready to take up arms and drive Melnyk out of Ottawa as some kind of scourge.

Oh sorry. Have I offended anyone by saying “take up arms”?

So if we can no longer use the phrase “blow up” because the country is at war, can we use the word “gun”, or even the very word “war”? Can we call a hockey game a “battle” or is that being disrespectful? Maybe we should not even have hockey anymore until the war is over.

That way we can be sure not to offend sensitive and politically correct souls like Glenn Kulka’s and Team 1200 callers like "Sleepy Jeff".

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I was hoping that someone would blog about this issue as it was on my mind today.

I totally agree. This is another example of the local media making a story out of nothing. I heard that the Team 1200 even received some e-mails from some veterans who expressed that they did not find the comments insensitive either. In fairness to Kulka, he had to take his anger out on someone, it was just Melnyk's turn today. I hope Melnyk does not take it personally. It'll be someone else's turn tomorrow.

That aside, I'm glad Melnyk addressed the issue of "blowing up the team". I agree with his assessment. I do not think that the team needs to be blown up. Change the defense and bring back Emery, that's what I would do. I also would not have been as patient as him with Bryan Murray, but at this point it doesn't matter much anymore.

"Cretin" and "invective". I not only got my hockey fix, but I learned two new words today. Who said hockey wasn't educational? Thanks Jeremy.

I made a point of listening to Kulka on the net, just to see how awful he was. It seems to me his 'act' is designed to provoke a response. As the parent of a small child, I know that the best way to deal with this type of attention seeking behaviour is to put them on the naughty step and ignore them.

It pains me to listen to the team 1200 sometimes when they try and make "good" talk radio by jumping all over a guy who gives more back to the Ottawa communuity than most would earn a 1 year x 100. Oh, and btw, he supports the Canadian troops better than any owner I have ever known.

Even Steve Lloyd jumped on that bandwagon. He toned down when McKenzie poo-pooed it though on the pre-game show. I though that was funny, actually.

I have to hand it to Eugene though. He totally distracted the media by talking about him rather than dumping on the team for 5 hours yesterday. A selfless act Eugene.